Kurt had been sitting at a bar a few blocks away from Natalie’s workplace when he got the text. He was only three beers in, which was barely enough to get a buzz started for a giant dragon shifter of a man. Still, he wondered if he was tipsier than he thought when he read the text from Natalie. He’d been excited when he saw her name pop up on his screen. Excited and nervous. He hoped that the text might be offering a truce of some sort, or an offer to talk soon. That would have softened the impact of what he was planning to do—which was wait for her outside of her job. He knew it was borderline stalkerish to show up at a woman’s workplace, but he was willing to risk the chance that she might think he was a freak. He needed to talk to her in person, and he couldn’t wait another day.
He needed to make her understand that he meant it when he said he was committed to her for life. And, as much as it would pain him to leave Torch Lake, he would do it for her. He’d do anything for her. Go anywhere for her. She just needed to give him the chance.
But the text he got was so different from what he’d expected that he had to read it twice to fully process what it was saying.
Please help! SOS! At work and under attack. Think the DWs found me. All power to building cut off and I’m being stalked.
Kurt had stared at the phone in disbelief for a moment, and then had sprung into action. He grabbed his wallet and threw down plenty more than enough cash to cover his bar tab, then took off running out the front door. He ignored the startled looks from the other bar patrons and started running for the office building where Natalie worked, thankful that he had been only a few blocks away. If he’d been across town it would have been difficult to get here in a matter of minutes. He would have had to shift into dragon form, and that would have caused him a heap of trouble with the Torch Lake High Council. He would have done it, regardless, to help Natalie. But this way was much easier.
His heart pounded in his chest, and he realized now that the uneasy twisting in his stomach hadn’t been because he was worried about confronting Natalie. It was the lifemate bond, warning him that his lifemate was in danger. He should have known, but he was still getting used to this whole lifemate thing. He would get better at it. He swore to himself he would. And he was going to have another chance, because he was going to rescue Natalie. There’s no way he was going to let the Dark Warriors have her.
As he approached the building, Kurt slowed down and slipped into the shadow of a doorway across the street from the building. He could see several wizard guards in front of the building. They were doing their best to look nonchalant, but it was clear to Kurt who they were. He strained his ears, trying to catch snippets of their conversation.
“Are you ready to do the containment spell?” one wizard asked. “We won’t have much time. Steve is probably talking too much and wasting time again.”
“I’m ready,” a second wizard said. “The moment that Steve and his partner come running out this door I’ll cast the spell. And once it’s done no one in the building is going to be able to get out.”
The first wizard laughed. “Nope. They’ll all be stuck. Most importantly, that little bitch who killed all our men on the boat is going to be stuck. In about ten minutes, she’ll be going kaboom.”
Kurt felt anger boiling within him. He knew they were talking about Natalie, and he wanted to go rip their heads off just for making the suggestion of killing her. But he forced himself to stay calm. It would be much easier to help her if the wizards didn’t know he was here.
He wasn’t exactly sure what they meant by a containment spell, but he could take a wild guess: they must be trying to trap her inside the building. And it didn’t take a genius to know what they meant when they said Natalie would be going “kaboom.” With the Dark Warriors’ track record lately, Kurt knew without a doubt that they meant they were going to blow up the building. The Dark Warriors’ favorite trick was setting bombs off everywhere. Kurt had no idea why. It seemed pretty unoriginal to him. Then again, you couldn’t ask a bunch of dark wizards and shifters to impress you with their creativity, and he should be glad that they were so predictable. It made saving Natalie easier.
Quietly, Kurt crept across the street and snuck around to the side of the office building. There were wizard and shifter guards here and there, but they were easy enough to avoid. The Dark Warriors probably hadn’t wanted to send out a huge group that would attract a lot of attention. Some of the wizards could be under invisibility spells, but it was impractical to try to maintain invisibility spells over all the shifters. They probably didn’t think they needed that many guards, either. Who was likely to be out here this late at night on a weeknight? The business section of downtown Chicago was empty after business hours, so there wouldn’t be anyone around to bother the wizards as they executed their latest explosive attack.
Kurt ducked behind a bush as a pair of shifters walked by, and held his breath hoping that the shifters wouldn’t notice his scent. But the two shifters seemed too intent on their conversation to care much about actually keeping a lookout for intruders. Kurt relaxed a little and sniffed the air himself. They were both bear shifters, by the scent of things.
“She’ll never find it,” the first shifter said, glancing at his watch. “The building’s huge, and she has no idea where to start. The odds of her randomly deciding to start with the men’s restroom on the twelfth floor are astronomically low.”
“True,” said the other shifter with a chuckle. “And even if she did find it, the chances of her disarming it in time are even lower. It’s a pretty rare bomb spell. All my wizard buddies tell me that unless you are a magical bombs expert, you wouldn’t know enough to realize that you needed to perform the farina spell to disarm it.”
“Yup,” the first agreed. “I’ve heard the same thing. That girl is toast.”
“She should have known better than to mess with the Dark Warriors.”
The two shifters disappeared around the corner, laughing raucously. Kurt frowned, and tried to memorize what they had said. He had no idea what a farina spell was, but maybe Natalie would know. That was when Kurt realized that he might need some backup help from some of the good wizards. Quietly, he pulled his phone out and texted Wyatt. As succinctly as possible, he explained where he was and what was going on, and asked Wyatt to text the wizards and see if any of them knew about the farina spell. No one would have time to actually get here and perform the spell, so Natalie would have to do it. But if some of the wizards could at least text him some tips, that might make a difference.
There was nothing left to do but try their best to take care of the situation. Kurt was going to save Natalie or die trying.
He was near a side door now, and he tried the handle, hoping that it would open. It was locked, though, and Kurt grunted in frustration.
“Of course it isn’t open,” he whispered angrily. “That would have been too easy.”
Looking around quickly to make sure that no patrols of wizard or shifter guards were coming by, Kurt took a deep breath and then punched the door as hard as he could. His knuckles stung, and a sharp crack rang out across the otherwise quiet alleyway, but the wood of the door easily splintered under his dragon strength. He would be able to push his way through the two halves of the door easily.
Calls of alarm came from somewhere around the corner of the building, and Kurt heard footsteps pounding. The guards had heard the crack and were coming to investigate. Hopefully, it would take them some time to find this door and realize what had happened. The door was relatively well hidden, and in the darkness it wouldn’t be easy to notice the cracked mess of wood right away. At least, that’s what Kurt hoped. He wasn’t going to stick around to watch. As quickly and silently as he could, he slipped into the building. Here went nothing. Or perhaps, here went everything. Either way, this would all be over in a matter of minutes. Kurt could only give it his best shot and hope that was enough.